Aberdeen boss Mark McGhee admits he adopted Walter Smith's European tactics to get a draw against Motherwell at Fir Park.
The Rangers boss played five centre-halves against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Tuesday night and managed to carve out a creditable goalless draw in their Champions League Group C opener. For the trip to Lanarkshire in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League McGhee also set out his Dons side with five natural stoppers: Jerel Ifil, Zander Diamond, Nikola Vujadinovic, Andrew Considine and Rory McArdle, with the latter two playing wide.
The former Fir Park manager said: "It was about the personnel. I looked what I had available and I picked what I thought was going to be our best XI and it contained five centre-halves. I took a certain amount of inspiration - if that is the right word - from Rangers against Manchester United and I thought if it is good enough for Walter, it's good enough for me."
He added: "When I first came to Motherwell I played three centre-forwards because they were our best available and the best available today were centre-halves.
"I was happy to get a point. On the balance of the game it was right."
Motherwell boss Craig Brown took McGhee's tactics as a compliment but insists it was his players who were to blame for only gaining a point.
Brown, who revealed that left-back Steven Hammell, who missed the game with a hamstring injury, will not be fit for the Co-operative Insurance Cup tie against Brechin in midweek, said: "I would have said they were playing a back three of centre halves with two wide players with a defensive mentality.
"But it's a compliment to us if teams come here and do that, particularly teams who have better resources and a lot of new players.
"I don't fault them at all, I fault ourselves for not making more of the opportunity to get three points. I feel frustrated. The goal we lost was poorly defended, our defender was on the wrong side.
"Our goalkeeper didn't have a save to make and normally you would be pleased with that but we didn't have enough creativity and we fault ourselves for that."
Source: PA
